April Showers...

...Bring May Flowers!

Sometimes, it takes a little extra work to get kids to see the fruits of our labors.  Spring is just a metaphor for learning.  Students work hard all year long (as well as through May) to master new skills.  This hard work takes many different forms...
 

Collaboration is hard work!  It often seems like for kids, but it takes social and academic prowess to do it well.  In the above pictures, students collaborated to determine when to use various graphs.  They collected the data, and in some cases, multiple types of data are required.

Learning the tools is hard work!  To get comfortable with testing, students had to practice the online tools.  Teachers designed specific tasks to ensure students knew which tools were available and how to use them.

Teaching peers is hard work!  Students need to understand the skills well enough to explain them to others.  As a bonus, those who do, get to play a little b-ball.

Getting kids to understand practice makes perfect is hard work!  Students demonstrate mastery of skills by rotating around the classroom, working the various problems.

Getting students to see school as life is hard work!  These students learn the difficulty of budgets and spreadsheets.  Maybe they can work on the Sparks family finances next...

Spending extra time in the classes that are most difficult for you is hard work!  Students in interventions work hard to build vocabulary and math skills.